If Canada was hoping to make an early statement at the 2012 World sledge hockey challenge, they did so pretty emphatically.

Attempting to win their fifth tournament in six years, Canada harassed and hassled Japan to the tune of 11-0 in their opening round-robin game at WinSport Sports Complex on Sunday afternoon. In the day’s first encounter, Josh Sweeney scored a short-handed goal at 2:28 of the third period which proved the decider in a 3-1 USA victory over Norway.

“We’re real proud of the guys,” noted Canada’s head coach Mike Mondin. “They prepared really well for tonight’s game. This game is over, the guys will enjoy the win, but it’s time to prepare for tomorrow.”

Canada will meet Norway at noon today, while Japan takes on USA at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, it certainly did not take long for the hometown favourites to assert their dominance on the Markin McPhail Centre ice surface. Just 2:26 of the first period in, Marc Dorion scored while both teams had a man in the penalty box. Two minutes later and just nine seconds into a power play, Brad Bowen made it 2-0.

The onslaught would continue, with the beleaguered Mitsuru Nagase facing 11 shots in the period and allowing eight goals. Dorion, 25, finished the game with the hat trick.

“It’s always my goal as a player to go out there and play to the best of my ability, try and do the right things,” Dorion explained. “I’m not known as a goal scorer, but I do go out there and contribute. I just try to work hard, try and cough up the puck to my teammates and generate some chances off of that.

“Even though we scored eight goals in the first period, there’s always things we can improve on.”

Everybody seemed to get in on the scoring action for Canada, something their coach was thrilled to see.

“All three lines contributed and that was a good thing,” Mondin agreed. “It’s early in the season, we have some things to work on and we’ve identified those.”

In his third season at the helm, Mondin also knows that, though the opener was perhaps a little too easy, things will get tougher as the week goes on, with Norway and the U.S. no slouches in the sport of sledge. In fact, the U.S. won the 2012 world championships in Norway last spring, with Canada coming home with a bronze, so there is a definite carrot at the end of this hockey stick.

“Our goal is to win the world championship; it was our goal last year and we came up a bit short, and we’ve learned from that,” suggested Mondin. “Going forward from this point, every day is a new learning experience and we can’t get ahead of ourselves. It’s an old cliché, day by day, but we have to focus on all the little things we have to master.”

Shinobu Fukishima took over in the Japanese goal in the second period, and he was able to keep the puck out but for three occasions, including Dorion’s third of the game. His teammates, meanwhile, could not muster little in the way of offence on Benoit St-Amand in the Canada net. In fact, Japan finished with just two shots on goal.

“We came out flat in the first period,” sighed Japanese head coach Kojin Nakakita. “Two shots cannot win the game, obviously, so we have to shoot more.”

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